Kumai, Borneo

The boat traffic on our three day passage from Bali was heavier than we have ever experienced. We were surrounded the first night with fleets of fishing boats, oil rigs, fishing floats and tankers. We travelled using our radar constantly and other boats which had AIS advised us of the names of tankers so we could call them if we were worried that they were too close. Once you got used to the fact that the fishing boats travelled very slowly and were well lit we felt less stressed by them but the tankers and tugs were always near.
We finally made our way along with the 6 other boats we had crossed with up the river to the town of Kumai on the south coast of Borneo---wow, how exotic it seems to sail to Borneo!!!
Our first view of Kumai was of a lot of large concrete buildings without windows?? We learned that these were the source of an amazing income for the local people. The swiftlet bird—similar to a swallow—makes its nest using saliva and is the source of the bird’s nests used by the Chinese to make bird’s nest soup. Normally these birds make their nests along the coast of Borneo on the walls of cliffs which makes for a hazardous collection of the nests to sell. Several years ago in an abandoned building the birds set up home and the local people realised that perhaps there was an easier way. They since have built 3 story buildings with small holes on the outside with a hallway inside providing access to collect the nests as they are built. Bird song is played on loud speakers to attract the birds. Here, loud speakers have been perfected for the mosques. The nests sell for US$1000 a kilogram so it is an incredibly profitable business. Most family’s live under the “bird hotels” to make sure they are not robbed of this great wealth.
We came ashore in our dingy which involved clambering precariously over the river boats to access the dock. We wandered along the rickety street which despite the wealth generated by the nests does not seem to have filtered far. We found the ATM and organised our trip up the river to see the orangutans for the next morning. We had booked the trip many months before with Herry who appears to offer one of the best trips but despite many email communications he had no recollection of this. It appears that when you arrive and show the money the trip is arranged. We wanted a three day trip and after bargaining were able to get it for 1,550,000 rupiah, around $200 each. We had planned to go with Ann and Barry on Cats Paw IV but Barry had an infected foot and needed to spend 3 days in the hospital in Bali—we had not had the issue of staph infections in Indonesia before this although many cruisers had needed medical treatment when we were in Vanuatu. Margaret, from Atlantia was also meant to join us but sadly her mother is seriously ill so she flew back to Scotland. This left Will from Atlantia and Margie and Peter from Peregrina to accompany us. We booked a klotok big enough for the 5 of us for 8am the next morning.
It is extremely hot and humid but no alcohol is available. Although Muslims do not drink we have been able to get beer in the restaurants previously, we hastened back to the boats to share happy hour at anchor.
The next morning our klotok arrived which is a large open boat with an overhead covering and enough space to have a table and seats from which to watch the world go by. We would be accompanied by the captain, a boat boy, cook, Julie and guide, Rudi.
Another “boat boy” was provided and came aboard our boat. He would sleep in the cockpit with the boat locked while we are gone and we left him snacks and drinks. He will have meals brought out to him for the 3 days.
We set off up the Sekonyer River which takes us to the Tanjung Putting National Park where the orangutans live. One side of the river is the national park but the other is farmed for the palm nuts which produce oil, the nuts are sent to Java to be processed. It is a brown muddy river which has had gold mining further up and is polluted with arsenic so is not suitable for even washing ourselves. Exploration is still done and we saw one boat come down towing all of his belongings returning, hopefully somewhat richer than when he set out?
The rhythmic putt, putt, putt of the engine was soothing as we slowly made our way to our first stop.
This was at a local village where the people eke out their existence presumably farming the palm nuts. It is very poor with the houses raised somewhat to allow for the wet season when this area would be flooded. We came across one young boy who was rebuilding a bicycle from all of the parts scattered around him and said he was building it for his brother. Life is simple here and nothing is thrown away if it can be fixed. They do access Kumai by motor bike on a dirt track and then cross the river with the motor cycles in an open panga ferry service.
The mosque, as is the way in this part of the world was the centre of the village and there was a learning centre funded by an Australian family where the local people can be taught the value of their area and the importance of retaining what small amount of rainforest is left.
We continued up river to the first of the “feeding stations” for the orangutans. These were set up years ago when they were rescued from poachers and the attempt was made to reintroduce them to the wild. It appears in the meanwhile as the forest has shrunk and the numbers of inhabitants have grown it has become a food supplement centre for the animals. Apparently in the rainy season when the fruits of the forest are available they do not need to come in as often.
The local rangers call as they bring food to the platforms (orangutan language??). They bring bananas but if they are not available they feed them milk made from milk powder and some sugar—we did question the choice but the orangutans appear healthy so it seem to be appropriate.
After a while as we sat on the benches it was exciting to see some of the apes swinging themselves along through the trees down to the platform. Many had babies clinging on and it was touching to see them hold on to some part of the mother at all times. They breed every 8 years as the baby is 7 before it can fend for itself. They live for 40-45 years.
Milk was the dinner today and they happily put their heads into the containers slurping away. More joined in and were happily feeding and sharing the milk when all of a sudden loud crashing was heard and the huge alpha male arrived. This immediately created tension and all of the families quickly climbed back up the trees and allowed him to feed. After a while one of the females gingerly returned with her baby, number one wife? The others however waited till he had left before coming back to finish what was left. When they had scattered one had ended up over the top of us and promptly peed on Peter’s head—hmm note to self—look up!!
After they left we returned to the klotok and made our way up the river spotting the long tailed macaques and proboscis monkeys. These odd creatures unique to Borneo with their pot bellies and strange noses became our favourites as they sat on the trees along the river banks.
We spent the night tied to a dock where after supper our guide took us on a night walk to look for sunbears and leopards. Rudi was a lovely young man who was very earnest and tried very hard to find things of interest for us to see. Although we did not find any of the large animals he was an expert at spotting spiders eyes in the headlight and had us taking many photos of them. None were very impressive but he felt he had found us something so we humoured him and took the photos—easy to delete later!!
The food was excellent and Julie proved to be a great cook and we felt quite decedent as we were waited on. They then set up the mattresses on the floor with a mosquito net tent and we slept well despite the lumpy mattresses.
We had several intense conversations in the evenings when the question of the lunar orbits, tides and related topics were introduced. Without google several questions remained unanswered and will have to be checked out later.
The following morning we made our way to the next feeding station which was very intimate as the apes came down and were fed wherever they arrived. We spent a long time there enjoying seeing them feast on the bananas. One male approached a female up a tree and they copulated along with noises which seemed to display the stress of the female and enjoyment of the male.
We then made a turn to a smaller river and felt as though we were with Humphrey Bogart on the African Queen as we searched and saw several small crocodiles.
Next was the Leaky feeding station which is the park headquarters and the location where the first feeding station was established. After the intimacy of the other smaller stations we did not enjoy it as much. There is apparently a huge male, Tom who unfortunately was not hungry enough to arrive. Princess who is 43 and was one of the original apes to be rescued was there and is very comfortable with humans. She has some sign language and as I was standing she surreptitiously tried to put her hand into my pocket to steal whatever was there. Sadly for her I felt it and besides there was nothing in the pocket. One of her sons is also very social and he enjoyed taking and throwing a stick to us.
Another day was over and we made our way along the river once again enjoying the proboscis monkeys as they gathered near the river for the night—they can quickly get away from predators from there (leopards) as long as they do not fall in the river and provide food for the crocodiles.
We tied to the reeds on the shore to spend a peaceful night listening to the sounds of the rainforest. This river is cleaner so our crew started the generator and we showered in the cool river water pumped directly to the shower head. It is extremely hot and humid here and after the initial shock of the cold water it was wonderful.
The following day was a 2-3 hour hike where Rudi explained various medicinal plants and we found termites, butterflies and many strange fungi.
This was followed by a visit to the interesting museum at the Leaky centre which explained the history of the park. We watched a video showing the original apes which had been rescued. Princess now 43 was one of these and at the same time there had been a young male who went on to become the alpha male at his peak. Unfortunately he is old and has had to leave the area to a stronger younger male and although they think he is still alive he has not been seen for a year. He no doubt will end his days alone. The animals are very solitary and the males when not breeding live alone.
Our next stop was to the reforestation plantation where they are trying to replant some of the rainforest—sadly in this area it has been depleted and poaching still takes place.
We then made our way back to Kumai viewing once again the proboscis monkeys and then after dark the wonderful spectacle of fire flies lighting up the walls of the river plants like Xmas.
We arrived back at our boats after being served dinner and tipped the “boat boy” who had washed our boat—unasked for by us.
It had been a great trip and we were all happy we had taken the three days to experience this amazing place.
The next day Margie and I went ashore to the market after having braved the wobbly plank from the dock to shore. We found wonderful huge prawns for sale for $5 a kilo, the chicken looked good but we were put off by the flies hovering around so settled on the prawns and I brought cuttle fish to make salt and pepper squid for happy hour. There are also many exotic fruits which we have learned to enjoy—mangosteins are our favourite but there are many lychee style fruits which we also like. Mandarins, pineapple and mangos are in season and as is the case everywhere in the tropics, bananas. Here they are small with extremely thin skins which are difficult to peel.
Happy hour was on Peregrina where the internet answered most of our lunar queries.
We spent another lazy day on the boat as we waited to attend the festivities planned by the local Regent for the next day.
We were greeted by various officials in very colourful silky clothing which they tell us is made on the island—definitely not what comes to mind when one thinks Borneo?? We were happy to have two air conditioned buses to take us to the planned events.
Our first stop was to an area where the local high school children were waiting for us and helped us each plant a casuarina tree. This apparently will thrive in the sandy soil which is dry for 6 months of the year and presumably wet for the other 6 months.
The children all wear uniforms and speak English fairly well. We have been told that by wearing the uniforms it does not allow discrimination between rich and poor but our feeling has been that actually the poor do not get to attend high school at all. Some of the girls have head coverings which they say is entirely optional. I spoke to one girl wearing one and she told me her mother does not and neither does her best friend so it seems to be personal choice. The one thing that did concern us in Indonesia is that there is obviously a lot of money coming in from Saudi Arabia for the building of mosques and we hope that the tolerant liberal views held here will continue. They voice their pride of their tolerance.
We then made our way to another high school which amongst other subjects teaches tourism and the young people were anxious to show us around and talk to us. I was immediately cornered by two young girls who decided I belonged to them and they showed me all around the school which seems to be well equipped.
Our next event was to the river bank of the main town where Malay people have settled on the shore on stilted houses supporting themselves with seafood. We went on a ride on a boat to view the houses from the muddy river where the residents were washing, brushing their teeth and children were jumping in the water to swim—their stomachs are obviously stronger then ours.
We were then taken to the “long house” which is a traditional long house where the Dayak people, the original inhabitants of the area would live as families. We were welcomed by dancers, the male dancers used swords and blowpipes which they explained were used to hunt with—the fact they some of the victims had been humans was not alluded to. These people had been head hunters in the past. We had the feeling that the glitzy costumes and dances were recently invented as it did not resonate with us that this was their original tradition.
We were fed an excellent lunch before being shepherded back to the main town to visit the Sultans Palace. The Sultan and family still are figureheads but apart from the wealth they obviously have they have no political power here.
We were then taken to the main town where we were meant to go to a handicraft market. After wandering around we came to the conclusion that other than a couple of stores selling poorly made knives and blowguns obviously cheaply made for tourists there was nothing here for us. They do mine sapphires nearby but our lack of knowledge of the gems did not inspire us to pursue this. The town had won the award for the cleanest city for the last few years, a competition which many other towns we have visited could perhaps join.
We were finally taken back to the anchorage where we had yet one more “happy hour” on Cop Out. This time we had invited a couple from Green Ghost who were two young Canadian geologists who were very knowledgeable about the areas I had been to when Tony and I were working in the bush many years ago.
The next morning many of us pulled up anchor to sail the two night passage to Belitong where after a week or so will sadly check out of Indonesia for Singapore.
The passage is in shallow water and the first 24 hours was not deeper than 30 feet—very unusual for passages for us. We finally got into water of 100 feet but do not expect to see a lot deeper at all. The second day we ran into torrential rain squalls which was very welcome. We have had no rain since June when we arrived in Mackay in Australia and it was lovely to wash off the deck and cool down. Unfortunately we needed to close all of the hatches so inside the boat was hotter than ever.
In the middle of the second night I was sleeping when I felt a thud. We had run into a bamboo fishing raft, impossible to see in the darkness. We now had two pieces of bamboo attached forward of our propeller and dragging behind us. Fortunately it was very calm with flat seas and Ken was able to hack the rope holding it together and it broke up as we left it behind. It does not appear to have done any damage and Ken will dive the hull when we reach Belitong. There are so many obstacles here that it is surprising more of us do not hit more things.
As we arrived in Belitong in sunny skies we hope the weather will hold as we intend to snorkel and take some “hang out” time for a week or so—we have not been able to do this since we left NZ. We will check out from here for Singapore.